What i heard from my turkey hunting pals on the SD side (who also hunt WY most springs) is that numbers were down in WY as well last year. However, both the WY and SD portions of the BH experienced an excellent hatch this past year, so things should be looking up.

just talked with 2 WY biologist & a NWTF biologist about hunting WY as the im still not able to bring my-self to buy a SD black hills tag just to many bad reports & to many roads when i look at a map of SD black hills... but all biologist said they did not have a really good hatch average or slitely below average at best & the year B4 was very bad so you make you own conclusions??? seven J outfitters is trying to sell hunts & they said some of there lands had a good hatch but???

i would call a biologist as there are areas that you will want to avoid as they had really bad hatches the last 2-3 yrs they are kinda rude the biologist in WY that is so you better have a exact question for them or the go into a general info ramble & then pass you to another biologist they seem to not think highly of turkeys there its a true big game state i guess???

im thinking my-self heading to either WY/SD as my hunting area in NE was burnt & is now gone forever i think other NE hunters will be looking to the black hills to do the same as i am cuz the biologist had already had calls about turkey hunting & he said he never gets them this early most mentioned a fire in there old hunting grounds that was troubling to hear also!!!???

the SD black hills has spotty reports at best 1 biologist says there is birds every wear in the hills 1 biologist says he cant even get a turkey in the spring time in the hills he hunts them in the fall & another biologist says you have tons of road hunters & he hunts the prairie units instead of around his home in the SD black hills so???

i may just say forget mountain merriams for now & just go to a prairie unit in SD or try some new areas in NE!!!??? good or bad year NE has plenty of turkeys to be had only thing is sometimes they have plenty of hunters also so!!!???

I just posted this in the other thread. I have hunted WY 3 times and the SD blackhills twice.. The two times in SD hills were early 00s and WY the first time was 07 or 08 or something.. Both were awesome trips... Went back in 12 and was absolutely shocked, I have seen winter kill here that was bad, but nothing like this.. Easily 70-75 percent less turkeys.. We killed out but had to work to find birds to kill..

If you remember right they got WHACKED with that Oct storm this year and intellicast is still showing 2+ feet in the hill areas.. It is my favorite state to hunt, its in expensive but I have a feeling it is getting scratched off my list for this year.. I would have to believe that Oct storm caught birds by surprise and trapped them in areas they normally would not be in harsh weather.. If the weather persists what birds are there will hold on the private ground in the bottoms until snow melts and than filter back in the hills.

kygobbler wrote:Guys if I remember correctly didn't the BH get a couple feet of snow last May? I'm thinking it was somewhere between the first to middle of May. How did that affect the hatch last spring?

I have hunted the hills of SD twice in the early 00s and the hills of WY in like 08 or 09 and 12 and 13.. The early experiences in the SD Hills were fantastic more birds than u could shake a stick at. In the first trip to WY much the same.. 4 of us set up I yelped 8 gobblers in 4 different pairs in 20 minutes with each of us plucking one bird from each pair.

When I returned in 12 I was absolutely shocked.. The private land we drove through that just a few years held 100s of birds was now void of turkeys maybe a small flock here and there.. Due to the warm spring I figured the birds had moved up in the hills already... It was many many many stops between gobbling birds while scouting.. We found a few small pockets of birds and killed but I have never seen winter kill like WY had experienced.

I keep a close eye on the Hills as it is my favorite place to kill a turkey, but I think I am bowing out this year.. They got 16 inches of snow while we were there last April and did get a may blizzard as well.. Than this October they got blasted with Feets of snow.. I watch the intellicast snow coverage map and the heart of the hills has been 2+ feet all winter long..

Not trying to deter folks but this long winter on a already down turkey population is not going to bode well..